The first living germ being granted, out
of it the creation develops itself progressively by natural selection,
through all the geological periods of our planets, by the simple law of
descent--no new species arises by creation and none perishes by divine
annihilation--the natural course of things, the process of evolution of
all organisms and of the earth itself, is of itself sufficient for the
production of all we see. Thus Man is not a special creation, produced
in a different way, and distinct from other animals, endowed with an
individual soul and animated by the breath of God; on the contrary, Man
is only the highest product of the progressive evolution of animal life
springing from the group of apes next below him."[28]
After this no one can be surprised to hear him say, that "the pulpits of
the orthodox, the confessionals of the priests, the platforms of the
interior missions, the presidential chairs of the consistories, resound
with protestations against the assaults made by Materialism and
Darwinism against the very foundations of society." (p. 286) This he
calls "Das Wehgeschrei der Moralisten" (the Wail of the Moralists). The
designation Moralists is a felicitous one, as applied to the opponents
of Vogt and his associates. It distinguishes them as men who have not
lost their moral sense; who refuse to limit their faith to what can be
proved by the five senses; who bow to the authority of the law written
by the finger of God, on the hearts of men, which neither sophistry nor
wickedness can effectually erase.
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